Not All It’s Cracked Up To Be
Have you ever noticed that, in all the advertising that shows parents with their children, there is not one photograph of the parents dealing with dirty diapers? Nor have I ever seen photos of the 2 AM feeding. Nor have I seen, in advertising photos that feature parent and child, any photos of any trips to the hospital emergency room… or parent-teacher conferences… or the parents’ side of prom night. Why don’t they show photos of the end of a weeklong vacation with tired pre-school children… or the soccer practice or band concert at the end of a long day at work … or the decompression aftermath of a confrontation with an independent teenager? Am I just imagining all this? Do these things never happen? Whatever happened to truth in advertising?
With apologies to our newest parents, the Kahldens, I want to say that parenting is not all that it’s cracked up to be. It is not all Gerber laughing baby pictures… or smiling families at McDonalds… or Disneyland weekends in August. For those of you who still have children at home, stop for a moment and think about the effort it took just to get here this morning… everything from pulling sleepy siblings from the cozy cocoons of their beds… to bathing and breakfast… cold coffee… and last-minute lost items. The truth is that parenting is dirty… dangerous… and discouraging work that holds very little hope of any reward… or recognition… or redemption. I believe parenting should have federal warning labels on it: Caution: Proceed at your own risk. May cause normally sweet, sane and stable people to become unreasonable… irrational… irritable… and resentful. There is absolutely no guarantee of success… and some side effects may last a lifetime.
So, why do we do it? Why do we take on these hassles…these headaches… and heartaches? I am waiting for the faithful among you to tell me that it was because God told us to “be fruitful and multiply.” Not hearing that, I am assuming that you… like me… were totally clueless of the challenges and potential pitfalls of parenting before it was too late. Parenting seems to be the expected “thing” that you are supposed to do sometime after you find “Mr. Right” or “Ms. Right.” After the wedding, the relatives all seem to sit around tapping their feet… waiting for the next chapter of the novel to unfold.
Parenting. It’s so ingrained in our society that it shows up in children’s stories and nursery rhymes. How else do you explain the “Old Woman in the Shoe” who had so many children she did not know what to do? And then there was the rhyme we chanted as we jumped rope at school during recess (and here I might be showing my age). It went something like this: “Carol and Tim sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes Carol with a baby carriage.” Whether you have children or don’t have children, you, yourself, were once a child and someone served as parent to you during your developmental years. So, today I am going to ask you to think about parenting and the parents you know… or the parents that you are… and put yourselves in David’s shoes.
Absalom was David’s son… a well-loved child… a tall, handsome man, according to the scriptures. He was one of David’s favorites and much loved by the people of Israel as well. Growing up, he had every advantage that a male child in those times could have: good looks… education… and wealth. And he grew up in what we would now call “a good Christian home” … a home with God at the center of it… with parents who were committed to a close walk with God… reading of scripture… attending worship regularly… and daily prayer. It seems that there was everything there to insure that Absalom would turn out right. And yet, despite his parents’ best efforts, this child of David chose a different path… one of violence and death.
We could cite many reasons why Absalom might have chosen a different path than his parents wished for him. It could have been the influence of undesirable people or bad friends. It might have been the results of chemical dependency… such as alcohol or drugs. It also may have been the effect of mental illnesses… such as depression or schizophrenia. We really don’t know why Absalom chose to kill his brother Amnon… or to sleep with his father’s concubines… or why he attempted to wrest the kingdom away from David, leading to armed conflict with his own father. We only know that he did do all these things and that his story ends with the premature death of this beautiful… intelligent… promising young man… and his father’s grief.
How many of us, I wonder, have felt the frustration and the pain of children who have wandered away from what we taught them into a dark and dangerous path in life? How many of us have spent long, lonely nights wondering where our children were… and whether the next piece of news we might hear would be of their untimely death? And how many of us, I wonder, have cried oceans of tears over children who were beautiful… intelligent… and promising… like Absalom… who threw it all away for the lure of money… power… or revenge? How many of us, I wonder, were the children who strayed … the ones who walked on the wild side… who remember the tears of our parents?
Several years ago, I sat with a chaplain at Seton Medical Center in Austin and heard the story of a beautiful young woman who… under the influence of alcohol… drove too fast… lost control of her vehicle… and swerved across the median into the path of a minivan that was carrying a family to a family gathering in another town. Several members of the family were critically injured. The young woman was not expected to live, and the chaplain had spent long hours with her parents, providing whatever comfort he could in the senselessness of it all. During that same week, I was with a family who watched their 28-year-old son die in intensive care from an accidental overdose of narcotics. What can we say at such a time to reduce the pain of a parent who sees a child dying before his or her time because of a rash act that had terrible consequences? What can we say at such a time to stop the stream of questions flowing through a parent’s mind that all ask, “What could I have done differently as a parent to prevent this?” “What could I have said to change the course of his or her life?” “What would have made a difference?”
In most cases, the answer is nothing. There is nothing we can say to comfort that parent... or any parent… at such a time. I remember one such mother lashing out in her pain, saying, “How could they ask me if I had other children? There is no other child like this child.” There is no pain like the pain of a parent whose child has died… whether that child is a 17-week-old fetus that never had the chance to live… or a 48-year-old woman with breast cancer whose life has slowly slipped away. The pain of a parent cuts too deeply for words. Many, many times the only thing we can do is to just sit there with them in silence… listening to their grief.
David grieved for Absalom… and no one could comfort him. In his grief, he cried out to God… and, in doing so, he found a soul mate… one who understood the pain that he felt. How many times, I wonder, does our gracious and loving God weep for us? How many times has God felt the pain of a parent whose child has gone astray and suffered the consequences of their actions? For, you see, we too are loved… and cherished as children of God. Yet, rather than being imitators of God, as our text from Ephesian urges us to to, we have often strayed down another path… and we are not kind and tenderhearted. The things we choose to do are thoughtless… self-centered… and cruel… things that lead us down a path of self-destruction. And, when we do these things, God… our Father… weeps for us… just as Jesus wept for Jerusalem in the week that he was killed.
God knows our pain as parents because God has felt this pain before. God has lived in the agony… and the despair… of a parent whose child has walked in destruction. Who better to comfort us in our time of need? Who better to walk with us through that pain… through the lonely nights? Who knows the path better than God? Who knows the pain we feel? We are loved by God… we are taught through the scriptures… and yet we stray. And God weeps for our stupidity. Yet, in spite of everything, we are loved… and cherished. Throughout the scriptures, we can see evidence of the children of God going their own way. I am convinced that, although the story only speaks of God’s anger, God also wept at the necessity of driving Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. For, as the story tells us, it was God who enjoyed walking in the garden in the cool of the day with his creatures. Would God not weep over the loss of innocence… and the destruction of that special relationship? Did God not weep over the folly of the Tower of Babel? Or the drunkenness of Noah? Or the infidelity of Abraham? Does God not weep over us and our sins today as well?
Yet, despite all our human failings, God does not seek to confine us… or condemn us. God never flinches from our evil, but continues to pour out his love to us until our cup overflows with mercy and grace. And God does this even when he knows that we will continue to make wrong choices. What greater example can we find of what it means to be a parent today? And who is better able to understand the pain we feel when our own children make poor choices… and suffer the consequences of them? I am sure that many of you have read the wonderful poem by Mary Stevenson called “Footprints in the Sand”:
One night I dreamed
I was walking along the beach with the Lord.
Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.
Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,
other times there were one set of footprints.
This bothered me because I noticed
that during the low periods of my life,
when I was suffering from
anguish, sorrow or defeat,
I could see only one set of footprints.
So I said to the Lord,
“You promised me Lord,
that if I followed you,
you would walk with me always.
But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life
there have only been one set of footprints in the sand.
Why, when I needed you most, you have not been there for me?”
The Lord replied,
“The times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand,
is when I carried you.”
God has promised to walk with us through all of those dark and desolate valleys. God never deserts us in our times of pain… but comforts us… encourages us… and shares our pain. And, in those times when our children make poor choices… when their own decisions lead to destruction… when the pain we feel cuts like a knife… and we weep for them as God wept for Adam… as Jesus wept for Jerusalem … and as David wept for his son, Absalom… can we not be comforted in the thought that God has walked this path before and will not let us walk it alone? Our Lord walks with us… and will carry us through. Amen.
2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33; Ephesians 4:25 – 5:2